Introduction
The question of scale presents as a key challenge for contemporary screen media, with the migration of the moving image across new networks, platforms and devices. The issue of scale is not only relevant for the emerging screens of mobile media but also for the future of the long-form narrative feature in the digital age. The feature form is not exempt from recent shifts in the screenscape marked by increasing levels of media hybridity, fragmentation and excess. In this context, screen scale for the feature form is taken as: the scale (or extent) of narrative structure and the scale (or size) of the moving image itself. This article seeks to highlight new and creative responses to the challenge of screen scale, in particular those that reveal innovation in feature film narration, scriptwriting and production.
The title of this article has been lifted from Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau’s S,M,L,XL (1995). This book, described by its authors as a ‘novel’ on architecture, presents a manifesto of design, form and aesthetics for the late-twentieth century. For this discussion on new feature film, S,M,L,XL is appropriated for its structure (albeit on a micro-scale) together with Koolhaas’ general emphasis in scale, as a key quantity and driving force of contemporary form and aesthetics. While S,M,L,XL may also be relevant to other new screen media (particularly the urban screen), this is beyond the scope of this research. The intent of this article is to highlight new directions for the feature form using a sample of case-study feature films: from [S] to [XL]. The films selected do not amount to an exhaustive study, rather a rapid ‘fly-over’ of the feature film screenscape from 2005-2008.
Munt, Alex.
S.M.L.XL: Feature Film across the Screenscape.
Scan Journal 5, no. 1 (May 2008).
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